Rolling R&B Thread 2012

it would feel a bit weird for alicia keys to drop a front-to-back awesome album at this point in her career, she's made so many individual songs that i love but i don't count any of her albums as great

I don't know. If she just discovered sex I guess everything is possible.

er

Sorry. Just mildly interested AND put off by this whole "being unleashed" turn. It sounds a bit desperate. I'm not sure if I'm up for an even more melodramatically intense AK. But also it would be good thing if it means she's letting go a little, you know?

Yeah, I don't think she really has persona to sell an unleashed album. She's so cold and businesslike it would be like, I don't know, hearing Bebe Neuwirth sing Rihanna songs or something

xposts but I am pretty disappointed by the Elle Varner album. Nothing here is as good as the Oak and Pop songs on Conversational Lush: "Ghosts", "Go" and even "WTF" are some of my favorite songs of the year. I'm not sure if she tried to consciously smooth out her edges or what, but I find a lot of these songs pretty superficial and same-sounding.

that alicia keys single is pretty bad. like how many clichés does she want to cram into the thing? pity, minaj's verse on the remix is one of the more interesting things she's done

i didn't really end up going back to varner's album much

"Girl on Fire" is already getting a ton of radioplay here, and seems to have all the trappings of a big single. Alicia Keys is such an out of place presence on that song that it's really hard to listen to it, though

think people itt will dig this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcVLk-o2nlc&feature=player_embedded

diggin it

i was clearly very wrong for being optimistic about new AK, "Girl On Fire" is the worst garbage ever

wow, it really is as bad as you all say. also it makes me think of Kings Of Leon. :(

i heard "No One" the other day and it was depressing to now have something to positively compare it to

word

I like "No One" fine. She's had worse singles before and after.

she's done worse than "No One" but i mean "Girl" is a really poor version of the same template

Yeah, and I swear the vocals and instrumental were recorded without any knowledge of the other.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rALKvHo7tWA

i hate to be that herb who does this around this time of year, but i've fallen really behind on new music. can the real players itt give me their 5-10 favorite r&b albums of 2012? thanks in advance

for me it's roughly: Melanie Fiona > Art Dealer Chic > Elle Varner > Dawn Richard > Jeremih > Monica > Kalenna > Usher > Frank Ocean > Dwele

1. Frank Ocean - Channel Orange
2. Miguel - Art Dealer Chic
3. Melanie Fiona - MF Life
4. Dawn Richard - Armor On
5. Jade Alston - Single on a Saturday Night
6. Jeremih - Late Nights
7. K. Michelle - 0 Fucks Given
8. Usher - Looking 4 Myself
9. Lucille Ghatti - High Grade
10. Teyana Taylor - The Misunderstanding of Teyana Taylor

I like the Kevin Cossom 'Hook VS Bridge II' freebie quite a bit.

yeah cosign it's pretty dece

There should be a yearly R&B critics' poll, right?

Who would host it?

DO NOT CLICK AALIYAH ATLANTIC ARTICLE
DO NOT CLICK AALIYAH ATLANTIC ARTICLE
DO NOT CLICK AALIYAH ATLANTIC ARTICLE

oh i must read

Gah, I clicked. The worst kind of connect-the-dots trend pieces. It reads like it was stitched together from Google Alerts for "Aaliyah."

*is drawn to the flame*
*perishes*

Take dubstep, which grew up in South London around the same time her 1996 breakout, One in a Million, was climbing its way up the US charts. English DJs, fusing 2-step with 30-year-old Jamaican recordings to create a darker strain of garage music, had little to do with her or Timbaland, the mastermind behind much of that album. But both undertakings shared a fairly radical philosophy that (among other things) saw sampling as a fundamental tool. Musicians have borrowed one another's inventions since the first caveman learned to whistle, but few until then laid entire foundations for songs with such small bricks salvaged so far afield. That mewing baby in "Are You That Somebody?"? It's the sole element Timbaland lifted from an obscure 1966 track by electronic pioneers Perrey and Kingsley.

Ah, I remember 1996 well. Staying up late to watch MTV's Amp premiere the latest dubstep tracks.... those were the days.

waht is a micole

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=basq-Is_1XU&feature=watch_response

http://soundcloud.com/iamlyricaanderson/sets/king-me/

this tape is what's up

ooh she did a good hook on the na'tee mixtape

*clicks*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hOq_J0lldY

fake mmts sillyness but on a beat like this i'm always down

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGUGPuUGW2w

agreeable dippy trifle biz, prod danja

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRnTtpVDL90

when i saw the phrase 'fake mmts' i thought for sure the yt would be the marcus canty single

the lyrica anderson is fantastic! love her pillowy vox on "10 minutes", love "surrender", love the someone-just-excavated-timbaland's-2003-vaults feel of "vampire"

new lloyd (the version on spotify is wale-free tho)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-CNKdysXpo

not reinventing the wheel but i just love his voice SO MUCH

i didn't listen to that last album enough. a lot of good songs on there. i probably erred in not top 10-ing it.

yeah, i loved that record a lot. also his christmas song from last year is probably one of the best new christmas songs of the past decade

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1aGyy6s298

the one thing i remember about that album is thinking that it was 2 chainz first big major label placement

he was even still tity boi at that point!

This was a total gem off his last one, from the deluxe version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWQsIulJxR4
the snare <3

Still think it's a crime that "Private Dancer" didn't make that record.

wow, had no idea there WAS a deluxe version, much less one w/ a title track! great stuff

"Bang!!!!" is a really weird song. I'm 90% sure it was a rejected Trey Songz track, because that Salo rapper calls Lloyd "Trigger" in her verse. It's really distracting.

that's one of the best songs on the record imo

"giddy up horsey, I'ma show you how I ride it, Trigger" is a reference to Roy Rogers's horse Trigger, rap genius

damn that's old school